Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Path: watmath!watserv2.uwaterloo.ca!torn!spool.mu.edu!uunet!noc.near.net!ns.draper.com!news.draper.com!surname!ibe1109
From: ibe1109@draper.com (Ira Ekhaus)
Subject: Weaning  myself from Matlab: is APL a viable alternative for scientific programming and signal processing?
In-Reply-To: ljdickey@math.uwaterloo.ca's message of 23 Dec 92 18:06:40 GMT
Message-ID: <IBE1109.93Jan17152519@etbsun1.draper.com>
Sender: nntp@draper.com (NNTP Master)
Nntp-Posting-Host: etbsun1.draper.com
Organization: Draper Laboratory, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1993 20:25:19 GMT
Lines: 42

Hello,

My only knowledge of APL is that MATLAB is "similar", and I'm curious
about APL.
For my own case, the beginning of  a typical  project  has the relative
weight of C and matlab code:

data <---C  --------><-------------matlab  ----------> postscript files for  reports

but  as the processing stages mature, I change them to C.

data <---C  ----------------------------><-matlab ---> postscript files for  reports

Although  Matlab is  a very good product, I'm constantly running into
the following limitations:
	1)arrays are limited to two dimensions
	2) no data structures. 
	3) Sometimes , it takes a great deal of effort to avoid 
	the dreaded interpretive mode which is very slow.
Even with all these problems, the language itself is so convenient
that it's hard not to use, its the closest thing to a "numeric oscilloscope"
that I've seen for signal processing development.

Now, I'd like to correspond with people about their experiences with various
versions of APL. Not only the language, but the total environment of which APL
would be a part:
	Comparisons with Matlab (power of language, memory usage, speed),
	ways to link up with C and Fortran ,
	ways to plot data (vectors or matrices) on the screen , 
	ways to output graphical images to a file
	price and availability of various implementations.
	Any versions of APL running under (exploiting aspects of) an  X11 environment?
	
thanks,

Ira
ekhaus@draper.com
Phone: 617 258 1109
Draper Laboratories m.s. 7c
555 Technology Square
Cambridge , MA 
02139
